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The Serpent of the Stones.
This poem has been adapted from Al-Nabigha Al-Thubiani’s poem, That Al-Safa. The poem is enclosed below. The agéd bard wrote down with quillOf brothers whose land’s now arid.The elder leashed his she-camelTo quench thirst in wells where snakes hid.“Brother, the valley I forbidFor death awaits in shrubs unpruned.”“I will away, and life be rid.”The snake…
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In Transit
The easterly winds at the break of dawnBring adrift the dune sediments, ashes,And the divine aspirations.All thrown,Into the glory of the morn. Flashes Of mortality,Glance then lance at dusk.The leaves wither, the dripping felines stray.The jaw, heavy with fatigue, fills with husk,Of insect shells and the dry seeds of May. Life in transit,The fleshly exchanges,Of…
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A rope
The walls of the world are boxing us in.The jagged path slopes upward. Walking ceased.Rain violates dryness: Nothing to winFrom trouble but more pain and letters creased. Rejoice, rejoice! For the kingdom is near.And count your blessings, and ask now for grace.Stoa’s brave stolid men warned us of fear.And Son of Man, alive, rose and…
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A Song to the Goat Lord.
O great Lord of Earthen Goats, smile on us.Tell us tales of broken pride, lest we err.Immortal Lord of the Goats, smile on us,And tell us the tale of sleeping Werther. We see but darkness, for light may not come.We are lead by chains, and guided by imps.We hear goats march on the beat of…
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The Slow Erosion of Innocence
A man dreams under the Winter shower:Cold dreams, dreams unravelling at the seams,But lucid.Crisp.Joyous…Yet still sourThe night, and smother gentle Wintry dreams. What troubles man but those slung arrows?Those, from within pierce out. What is Justice?What is man, what is a dream?What far rowsOf volumes, leather-bound, you read, Faustus? Immersed was he in the Categories.Has…
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What shade of gray is a gray thing?
What shade of gray is a gray thing?Which clouds in the day should settle The gray,Gray of my days or yours?Who gives you (or whom?) the powerThe incipient power of..judgement! What heavy words… Heavy(?).And how can we know of heavy,Or heaviness, that ancient form.Veil me, Asclepius — I sin,By asking, and gain wounds of thought. Shuweikh,March,…
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A little more to endure, alone
Awaiting the hour, paid by the rate,Wrestling with time,Dilating the moment,The cars go by and tires dissipateThe rubber.We wait for a monumentThat liberates our father, who’ll berateThe waste of years and days, and to lamentThe broken hearts of stone in hope to sateHunger.Or for worth, perhaps.Fall, cement,And center this world of things: SatiateThe needs of…
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A letter to the month of March
Time is buried everyday,So we live.We live through its death, and kill it we must.For how can that beast which consumes life giveTo us, faint of heart, blood that does not rust? But what is this time but the lies of clocks!And what may ages past tell us of now?Is not the now, the present,…
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The Passing of Days
It seemed that sounds as virulent as SpringSurrounded me, when I least suspectingWas being readied as burnt offering.La danza del Fuego around nothing: The heat of air, the sting of death, The crassDays of Spring. Whatever comes to the day,Whatever sets at night is cold as brass.Entangled with tides of Spring, All is grey. As…
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Derbeel Q8 